Digital library books on NPR's Planet Money

Our own Michael Blackwell spoke for libraries last week on NPR's Planet Money.  Thank you, Michael, for thoughtfully walking through the interviewers' questions and demonstrating the challenges we are facing with digital books.  You are always an articulate spokesperson, and we are proud to have your voice on this national platform!

Michael comments on the midlist author, who is interviewed first:

"One of the worst problems with current licenses is that they create a lack of diversity in our collections and disadvantage the least affluent among us by limiting libraries ability to provide a wider range and amount of content. The author interviewed (a midlist author from an indie publisher) is actually a perfect example: current terms generally skew our collections to the most popular things, greatly disadvantaging new/mid-tier authors whose works cost the same as, say, a John Grisham. I’m sorry she seems to think libraries are “giving away” her work, but this is not correct.  We know that some publishers tell authors that libraries are hurting them, but we actually pay far more for an ebook than for print. Fewer authors get to benefit with digital than with print."

Carmi wants to comment on the other person that Planet Money interviewed, John Sargent, former CEO of Macmillan. Sargent's talking points in defense of the Macmillan embargo are the same ones he used in 2019. Here are some questions that Carmi wishes Planet Money had asked him:

If digital library books are truly an existential threat to Macmillan, why did he permit the company to enter that market at all?

The library embargo has now been defunct for over 2 1/2 years. Is Macmillan going out of business due to eLending, or for any other reason?

What evidence does Mr. Sargent have for the claim that that the "friction" inherent in borrowing a physical library book is responsible for historical book sales?  He states "In the old days, I want to check a book out of the library. I get in my car. I drive over there. I go into the library. I find the book. I take it to the front..."  He thus implies that, because of these barriers inherent in borrowing, some people would buy books. But all of this travel-related friction also applied to buying books. You had to get in your car, go to a bookstore, find the book, take it to the front, etc.

Digital books do remove travel-related barriers for borrowers. But they also remove those barriers for buyers. It is easy to sit on the couch with one's phone and borrow a book.  It is also easy to sit on one's couch with a phone and buy it.

In other words, there is nothing about digital lending that makes borrowing easier or buying harder than it ever was. With both physical and digital books, there are only two real friction points that readers balance: wait time and price.

The librarians who wrote to Mr. Sargent to protest the embargo explained this in detail, but he persists three years later in explaining that digital borrowing works in a way that it simply does not.  He does so, even though the embargo reportedly lost Macmillan millions of dollars, and although none of his dire predictions for the company have materialized.  Why?  Is it possible that the friction theory was never the real reason for the embargo?  That, all the time, it was simply about squeezing a little more profit out of a convenient and normally cooperative customer?  What purpose does the friction theory serve, if not the truth? Well, it casts a billion-dollar international corporation as a helpless victim of digital disruption rather than a villain, and the story seems to have worked on Planet Money. But the facts are that Macmillan hijacked library service and made borrowing harder for people who can’t afford books so as to manipulate an affluent few into buying. Macmillan is not the victim here.